British In Poland

This year my family and I will be spending Christmas back in the UK. Knowing how expensive flights can get at what must be the busiest time of year I now have the dilema of deciding when to travel and with who.

According to www.cheap-flight-poland.co.uk my choices (now that Centralwings have ceased flying) seem to be RyanAir, EasyJet or BA.  RyanAir  is the cheapest at 2000 PLN but they only fly to Stanstead which is the wrong side of London for me and thus a total pain. EasyJet want over 2500 PLN for 4 adults and a baby.  Plus I am not totally confident with the way the small airlines have gone recently that either of them will still be in business by Christmas anyway.  So that leaves me with BA but they want over 3000 PLN.

Then I had an idea – ferry!  A quick search on this boooking engine:

reveals that I can get a ferry for £55 return!  Using the route planner at viamichelin.co.uk my estimated return fuel cost is about £250.   Thus I can get 4 adults there and back for around £300 instead of the £600+ the airlines want.

A good tip is to check the Dover-Dunkerque route because NorfolkLine ferries do that route and they seem to be regularly cheaper than P&O and the likes who do the Dover-Calais route.

Another ferry tip is that the time you travel affects the price, but the ferry companies know that when you are driving half-way across Europe you may be a little earlier or later.  NorfolkLine give you at least a 4 hour window.  So if you want to sail at 1800 (for example) have a look and see if the 2000 or 2200 sailing is cheaper and book that one.  Turn up at 1800 as planned and you’ve saved yourself another few quid.

Tags: ferry

This entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 7:18 pm and is filed under vehicles and driving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.